It happened again - minutes ago. CNN talked about a news a story rather than reported a news story. There is a difference between TALKING about the news & REPORTING the news - a distinction increasingly lost on the powers that be at CNN. I swear they could bail out wall street with the money CNN pays out to one so-called expert after another. Increasingly, CNN seems incapable of highlighting a news story without analyzing it with TALK - TOO much bloody TALK!
Minutes ago - an anchor was given approx. 30 seconds to cue the audience into a story. Then she spent just as much - if not more - time introducing her two experts. She asked a few questions - not much more probing than "so what do you think?" As a result the answers were not on point with the heart of the story. AND the heart of the story, btw, was never addressed in the 30 second lead-in. Then - that was it - onto the next story.
I was appalled. Every time I clicked on my browser today this story lit up google headlines. I knew more about the story from google headlines than I did from the CNN "piece." No joke. There was a MAJOR wrinkle in the story that was NEVER fully addressed, only passingly alluded to in this "piece." If the anchor had just simply REPORTED the facts of the story then we - the audience - would be up to speed & informed. BUT since, as per usual, CNN felt the need to pay experts to talk AROUND the story - the audience was left uninformed.
It's not the experts' fault. They aren't news people. And it's not the anchor's fault - she's actually a good reporter when out in the world reporting away from a talking desk. It is the producers and those that think that the way to better ratings is to soften, mystify & cutsify the news.
Reminds me how everything else is merchandised these days …
ReplyDeleteLike food – over-processed and devoid of vitamins or nutrition
Like toys – pre-packaged fantasies that deprive kids of self-driven creativity
Like news – not the reported account but the editorialized account eliciting a shrink-wrapped emotional response
Corporations see consumers as ciphers, ridiculous little ironic mode caricatures and Chaplinesque clowns that hardly rise to the level of humanity. Every product framed in the camera becomes a monolith, and consumers are monkeys eager to touch it.
Yes, A1 Steak Sauce really is important as the camera frames a dog lapping water, but when the dog stops drinking, you realize the SFX of a dog lapping water is not the dog but the man licking his plate. Ergo, man reduced to dog.
Whether one is selling corn chips or cable news, notice how eager and excited are those silly little monkeys. That is how corporations see us, or perhaps that is how corporations want us to see ourselves: As obedient and compliant little monkeys.
And we are so damn used to this assault on our sensibilities, few of us will ever notice or complain.
If we complain then we are cranky "elitists" n'est ce pas? There's nothing more hip or with-it than being just like everybody else and any movement intended to be a counter culture is immediately assimilated -- and more smoothly than the Borg could imagine.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Squid is right about News producers, with the possible exception of the Fox perps. Their version of happy talk news serves those who are happy to be outraged at people they don't like for unrelated reasons.
We certainly are puppets and I suppose we always have been. It's probably in our genes.
This interview with Noam Chomsky:
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It is one of the big differences between the propaganda system of a totalitarian state and the way democratic societies go about things. Exaggerating slightly, in totalitarian countries the state decides the official line and everyone must then comply. Democratic societies operate differently. The line is never presented as such, merely implied. This involves brainwashing people who are still at liberty. Even the passionate debates in the main media stay within the bounds of commonly accepted, implicit rules, which sideline a large number of contrary views. The system of control in democratic societies is extremely effective. We do not notice the line any more than we notice the air we breathe. We sometimes even imagine we are seeing a lively debate. The system of control is much more powerful than in totalitarian systems.
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I think the only legal entities that truly thrive in our version of democracy are corporations. The rest of us are regarded as manageable nuisances.
It still beats FOX News.
ReplyDelete"shrink-wrapped emotional response" - that's a great way to put it, Octo. It's as if we are being told how to feel about the news not how to think about it. All of which if heightened by sensationalized lead-in graphics as they segue back from commercials to the "news."
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Fogg, we are elitists if we complain & start waxing poetic about BBC news.
The Noam Chomsky quote is chillingly accurate. wow.
As for CNN still being better than Fox - yes it is. But I almost resent that because I feel held hostage by it because of the awfulness of the alternative.
And then there's the almost total lack of world news coverage . . . another post for another day.